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Stalin economic policies
How did stalin change the soviet union economy(essay)
Stalin economic policies
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The Communist Russia Under Stalin
Stalin wanted the USSR or Russia to become more powerful than other countries. To do this he had to modernise the USSR's economy by a programme of rapid industrialisation. This means developing industry to such an extent that a country that mainly depends on agriculture or farming is changed into one which mostly depends on industry. Stalin said that the USSR was 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. He aimed to catch up with and surpass them within ten years. Russia's industry was recovering from the effects of war, but even then, production from heavy industry was low compared with other countries. Stalin felt it was necessary to catch up with the West because
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These issued orders or instructions: commands that were passed down to the local factories, businesses and farms. Gosplan drew up a series of plans known as the Five Year Plans. There were three Five Year Plans. These set targets or goals that industries and agriculture had to achieve. In practice the emphasis was on over-fulfilling - achieving more than the set targets, rather than only meeting them. Such a system discouraged individual initiative. For instance a factory manager received his instructions (commands) and simply carried them out. The state or government controlled the resources it needed to achieve the economic targets. Factories, mines, transports and farms were owned by the state. The government exercised tight control over the labour force. Ordinary workers were harshly disciplined. There were heavy punishments for poor workmanship and absence. The state told workers where to work. Millions of peasants were directed into the towns and cities to work in the factories and mines. Heavy industries were given priority. Consumer industries were almost totally neglected. Agriculture was reorganised for the benefit of …show more content…
It produced electricity, provided irrigation for the surrounding farmland and made the Dnieper River more easily accessible for shipping. Other major projects led to the improvement of Russia's communications system. Roads, railways and canals were built linking mines with the factories and the factories to the main centres of population. The 500-km Belomar Canal from the White Sea to the Baltic Sea was constructed almost entirely without machinery. The USSR was better able to defend itself in a long war as a result of the plans. Factories produced iron and steel that could be used for manufacturing tanks, planes and weapons. However the Five Year Plans were not entirely successful. They placed enormous demands on the people. The unrealistically high targets meant millions of workers lived in extreme hardship, working on the vast projects in the interior of Russia. The state tightened its control over the work force. For instance in 1937 workers found guilty of absenteeism were dismissed and deprived of their living accommodation which meant, in effect, starvation. The emphasis
Factory workers worked twelve to fifteen hours a day in hazardous condition. There were no protective rules for women and children and no insurances for job-related accidents or industrial illness. The workers were obliged to trade at company store
The Development of Totalitarianism Under Stalin By 1928, Stalin had become the undisputed successor to Lenin, and leader of the CPSU. Stalin’s power of appointment had filled the aisles of the Party Congress and Politburo with Stalinist supporters. Political discussion slowly faded away from the Party, and this led to the development of the totalitarian state of the USSR. Stalin, through.
The working conditions at the time for the majority of laborers was deplorable. Businessmen would take advantage of the laborers and force them to work long hours with severely little
Instead, they were kicked out of their job. If a machine caught fire, they didn’t have safety measures such as fire drills or emergency exits that make the exit of the building such an easy task. Most food factories, didn’t force their employees to wear gloves, masks and hair nets while they were working and manipulating the products. This lack of hygiene measures brought a large amount of diseases that easily spread out around the country through the food these factories sold. Sometimes customers could find hair or even eat meat where someone had sneezed on it.
Factory workers of this time had very little freedom. Aside from having to work outrageous hours for 6 days of the week, there was no job security, no solid way to survive day-to-day, and if a family member were to suffer an accident, families had no financial means to carry on. In the early 1900s, there were no labor laws, including the right to organize, an eight-hour day, safety standards, or unemployment/disability pensions. M...
Working conditions were described as dangerous, dirty, unhealthy, polluted, dark, dim and drafty. These workers who worked very hard with their strong muscles in these horrible conditions were not valued. If they were hurt and could not work, they were simply replaced. This was also stated in Document 4, with the same thing happening to children. In conclusion, both adult and child workers were not valued equally and treated like garbage.
In the early times of the 20th century, Russia experienced many changes in their political system, which has progressed from the single-party Communist state into a current semi-presidential republic. After the October Revolution of in 1916, the Council of People’s Commissars was formed in the Russian Republic. Serving as an executive organ of the Central Executive Committee, the members of the Council were elected for two years, and helped structure the country to form the Soviet Union. Over time, this eventually became the highest government authority of executive power under the Soviet System. Following the creation of the USSR in 1922, the Unions became modeled after the first Sovnarkom, but to deal with domestic matters, the Soviet republics maintained their own governments. By 1946, the Council of People’s Commissars transformed into the Council of Ministers, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics changed the People’s Commissariats into Ministries. As head of the executive branch, the council was responsible for issuing declarations, and they had obligatory jurisdictional power over the territories within the Union.
It has been noted, “This ‘reshaping’ had three main aspects: the elimination of all dissent; the liquidation of all forms of democracy and of working class organisation; the slashing of the living standards of the working class and the physical annihilation of millions of peasants” (Text 5). This quote explains how Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia, which includes the deaths of several peasants of Russia. The Russians did not just die from The Great Purge, but also from Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to industrialize the Soviet Union. It was also a plan to increase the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity.
at age 26. He no idea what was involved, what to do and went along
boosted the USSR’s economy. Therefore Stalin had created a country which seemed corrupt at the time, but later on it improved by the hard work Stalin had forced upon them.
The general perspective of the Soviet Union was that the country was a dictatorship, specifically, an oppressive, brutal, top-down autocracy that guided all aspects of life of its people. From grocery stores having set quantities of goods, only purchasable by ration card, to strict, set times of work and off-duty hours, to censored press, The Soviet Union was indeed a dictatorial state. However, the people of the Soviet Union did not simply fall into line with the established rules of society- They had diaries, they wrote down their opinions about the government or their job, they wrote detailed memoirs of their life within the USSR. The people of the Soviet Union had some freedom, and it was even codified in the Constitution of 1936. Yet, scholars and most people in general still widely accept the notion that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian dictatorship. The question then arises: Why did the Soviet people have freedom, otherwise known as sociological ‘agency,’ to denounce others or write down their views about society, if the country was perhaps one of the most totalitarian and dictatorial countries to exist in human history? By analyzing Totalitarianism as scholars perceive it, as well as the Soviet system, along with examples from the people of the USSR, one will be able to realize that totalitarianism set the rules for society within the Soviet Union and provided its people with a distribution of power, which was used by those that understood the system and could act within the framework of the system.
After their defeat in the Crimean war (1853-1856), Russia’s leaders realized they were falling behind much of Europe in terms of modernisation and industrialisation. Alexander II took control of the empire and made the first steps towards radically improving the country’s infrastructure. Transcontinental railways were built and the government strengthened Russia’s economy by promoting industrialisation with the construction of factory complexes throughout...
A characteristic of a person who tends to help facilitate people to achieve a certain task describes leadership. By motivating and directing individuals, a leader tends to have a major affect on a group of individuals. Leaders can be harsh and commanding, but they also can be accepting and encouraging. However, both styles of leadership have a major affect on the group of individuals and the nations they rule either positive or negative. For instance, an authoritarian leadership style is when one person rules an entire nation alone and decides what is good or bad for the country without any input from other executives. Authoritarian rulers tend to be harsh and commanding to the people because they are ruling an entire nation but there is only
Working shifts were beyond the control of the workers and the job was not necessarily stable because workers could be fired at any time for any reason (OI: “Working Conditions”). Moreover, the working environment was cramped and caused many problems to arise, such as the death of workers. The working class suffered greatly from the consequences of the Industrial Revolution. However, they also experienced many improvements in life, such as the decrease in prices of goods. The price of goods was able to decrease because of the increase in production.
Stalin’s industrial policies between 1928 and 1945 were numerically excellent, but at the expense of workers and living standards. The Five Year Plan set arbitrary quotas, which compelled workers to work 12 to 14 hours a day. The policy of militarisation of the workforce imposed severe curbs on worker’s rights. Quitting and unemployment had become disused words, and trade unions were banned. A mixture of fear and political will compelled workers to try to accomplish astronomical quotas.